A large part of the Milton Model, upon which much of NLP and covert hypnosis is based on is vague.
Vague meaning that many of the language patterns are specifically vague.
Which makes them incredibly powerful.
Why?
Because when you use artfully vague language, it does a couple of things.
One is it uses up brainpower, thereby reducing conscious resistance.
Second, the listener will fill in the blanks with their own experiences.
This will generate an incredible amount of deep rapport.
Consider these two sentences:
1) You tried to make $350 a couple weeks ago, and you only made $127.
2) You tried to earn some money in the past, and didn’t earn as much as you’d hoped.
Which one sounds better? Unless I got extremely lucky, the second one “fits” for pretty much everybody. It doesn’t matter if you tried to earn ten cents two days ago, or a million dollars two decades ago, the second sentence still fits.
This means you can sound like you “understand somebody” even when you’ve just met them.
This will give you an incredible feeling of connection and rapport, which means they’ll be much more likely to trust them.
In fact, this is the secret behind Milton Erickson’s success. He could talk to patients without really knowing much of their history, resources and abilities.
But by using these vague language patterns, they not only filled in the blanks on their own, but they were exactly what they needed to solve all those problems they’d had, in a matter of minutes in some cases.
And you can do the same thing, when you apply these same techniques.